That night, an aide to the mayor, Javon Coney, sent an email to Ms. Cumberbatch. “I wanted to give you a heads up that the mayor ran into Harendra Singh this evening,” he wrote. “The mayor would like you to meet with Harendra asap since it is a time-sensitive issue that he has.” He provided Mr. Singh’s phone number and email address.
Ms. Cumberbatch replied seven minutes later, promising to contact Mr. Singh.
“One other note for this is the mayor wants a briefing from you on this before the meeting between you and Harendra takes place,” Mr. Coney wrote back. “Thank you!”
The next day, Mr. Singh sent Mr. Coney a packet of information. Mr. Coney forwarded it to Ms. Cumberbatch, and her staff called a meeting to discuss it the same day.
Ms. Cumberbatch wrote to Mr. Coney to say that she would discuss Mr. Singh’s case with the deputy mayor for economic development and the head of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which was considering using a parcel of land adjacent to Water’s Edge for a building project. An email sent the next week noted that the DCAS staff was in touch with Mr. Singh’s office on “almost a daily basis.”
It was at about this time that Ms. Cumberbatch received a telephone call from the mayor. Sally Renfro, Ms. Cumberbatch’s chief of staff, who has since retired, said that she remembered her boss taking the call, and returning to express surprise.
Ms. Cumberbatch asked her staff about Mr. Singh, her lawyer, Mr. Walden, said. One staff member told her that Mr. Singh had served on the mayor’s inaugural committee — an indication that he was an influential donor. Ms. Cumberbatch believed that the mayor’s call had put her in a potentially compromising position, and Mr. Walden said that she told her staff that she was going to handle his case “by the book.”
She put Mr. Morales, who started working at DCAS in mid-June, in charge of the Singh negotiations. She also told him about the call from the mayor.
Mr. Morales, who received the city’s Ethics in Government Award in 2009 for work as the Housing Authority’s general counsel, said that Mr. Singh brought up his ties to Mr. de Blasio at their first meeting.
“He said, ‘I’m an important donor to the mayor,’ and it would be very good if he could get a deal done,’” Mr. Morales said. “I said, ‘Let’s keep him out of it and do what’s best for the city.’ He made it clear that he was a friend to the mayor and a contributor and that the mayor had done events at the restaurant.”
Squabbles and Lawsuits
Mr. Morales and his staff worked to seek a deal with Mr. Singh, but tensions grew. Mr. Singh agreed to a plan to pay a reduced rent over several months, but then fell behind on those payments, according to the emails and other documents. The city sued Mr. Singh over the unpaid rent. And Mr. Singh filed a lawsuit against the city claiming that he was not liable for the pier repairs.
Mr. Singh complained to City Hall, and he accused Mr. Morales of using threatening language — a charge that Mr. Morales denied. Mr. Berger, the mayor’s special counsel, passed the complaints on to Ms. Cumberbatch.
Credit
Richard Perry/The New York Times
“I said, ‘Negotiate, but be civil,’” Mr. Berger recalled.
Apparently frustrated by the pace of negotiations, Mr. Singh hired Neal Kwatra, a lobbyist and political consultant with ties to Mr. de Blasio.
Mr. Kwatra later did work for a nonprofit group, United for Affordable NYC, created by Mr. de Blasio to support his housing initiatives. Mr. Kwatra’s parents gave large donations to the de Blasio campaign, and his mother, Pam Kwatra, arranged for $10,225 in donations from other people. In July 2015, Mr. de Blasio appointed her to the board of the Economic Development Corporation.
Mr. Kwatra began talking and emailing directly with Mr. Berger. On March 24, 2015, Mr. Kwatra and Mr. Singh met with Mr. Morales and his team.
“Let me know how the meeting went today,” Mr. Berger wrote in an email to Ms. Cumberbatch. “I’m sure I will get a version from Neal before the day is over.”
In the following weeks, Mr. Berger and Ms. Cumberbatch exchanged a series of emails, some of which also included Dominic Williams, the chief of staff of the first deputy mayor, showing that the case was being watched by others at the highest levels of city government.
Mr. Berger said that he did not recall speaking again with the mayor about Mr. Singh after the initial request to monitor the case. “He said, ‘Take a look at this and make sure we’re not doing anything wrong,’” Mr. Berger said.
The next meeting with Mr. Singh and Mr. Kwatra took place on July 17, when Mr. Morales’s team was to offer the restaurateur new terms for the pier reconstruction.
An email sent by Ms. Cumberbatch to Mr. Berger and Mr. Williams shows that the pier project was expected to cost $8.6 million, most of which would be paid by the city. Under the lease, Mr. Singh would be responsible for $3.1 million, but the city was offering to reduce his portion to $2 million in order to reach a settlement.
Just before the meeting, at the DCAS offices in the Municipal Building, Mr. Morales received a call from Ms. Cumberbatch.
“She said she got a call from City Hall and their desire was that the meeting go well,” Mr. Morales said.
At the meeting, in a wood-paneled conference room overlooking City Hall from the 20th floor, Mr. Morales described the new offer. Mr. Kwatra reacted in anger. “Kwatra looks at me, jumps up and says: ‘This is not good. I guess you didn’t get the memo from City Hall,’” Mr. Morales recalled.
Credit
Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
Mr. Kwatra and Mr. Singh walked out of the room. The meeting had lasted just minutes. “Everybody in the room’s jaws dropped,” Mr. Morales said.
Ms. Cumberbatch, who was not in the meeting, emailed Mr. Berger: “Singh and reps walked out of mtg upset.”
More Talks, and an Arrest
Soon afterward, Mr. Morales and his staff were taken out of the negotiations, and the talks were moved from the DCAS office to City Hall, where they were put in the hands of the mayor’s top political aide, Emma Wolfe, the director of intergovernmental affairs. Ms. Cumberbatch — who had not previously been directly involved in the negotiations — also took part, along with her agency’s general counsel.
The first negotiating session at City Hall occurred on July 30. A day earlier, Ms. Cumberbatch sent Ms. Wolfe an email summarizing the case. She included a note of caution: “Just a reminder, we stand as the City’s fiduciary and as such we have to pursue the City’s best interest.”
By mid-August, a proposed settlement had been drafted, including a further reduction of Mr. Singh’s portion of the pier repairs, to $1.5 million.
But Mr. Singh was having difficulty raising money, and in a Sept. 9 email, Ms. Cumberbatch worried about his “overall financial health.” She added: “Looking forward to wrapping this up!”
She did not know it but Mr. Singh had been arrested that morning in the Long Island corruption case.
Ms. Wolfe wrote to Ms. Cumberbatch several days later. “Thank you for all your efforts with H. Singh,” she said. “Case closed, and again I’m sorry!”
After federal prosecutors completed their investigation without filing charges, Mr. de Blasio defended his practice of asking city officials to respond to the concerns of campaign donors.
“I think it is normal for an elected official to receive concerns from people and pass them along for an agency to assess,” he said. “That’s how we have done things. That’s how we will continue to do things.”
Eric F. Phillips, Mr. de Blasio’s spokesman, refused to say whether the mayor had further contact with Mr. Singh about his problems with DCAS after the June 2014 encounter or whether he discussed the matter with Mr. Kwatra. Mr. Phillips also refused to say what Mr. de Blasio’s role was in the decision to involve Ms. Wolfe in the negotiations.
“It’s the job of city employees to help constituents navigate problems they’re having with agencies and city government,” Mr. Phillips said in an email. “Whether it’s someone who calls 311 or someone who talks to a commissioner at a town hall, or to the mayor at an event or on the subway, we want to help people and businesses find solutions to their issues. New Yorkers who donate to political campaigns shouldn’t be barred from receiving that assistance.”
Mr. Berger, in an interview, said that City Hall had not sought preferential treatment for Mr. Singh.
“My conversation with Stacey was explicit,” Mr. Berger said, referring to Ms. Cumberbatch. “There are two concerns: get the money he owes us and make sure the place doesn’t get empty.” He said that it was in the city’s interest to keep Water’s Edge running, so that the city could continue to receive revenue.
The restaurant closed after the arrest of Mr. Singh, who is still awaiting trial in the corruption case. Last month, a State Supreme Court judge in Queens rendered a judgment against Mr. Singh’s company for $3.1 million in unpaid rent and $3.4 million for costs related to the pier renovation. It was not clear whether the city would be able to collect.
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